A couple of months ago I bought two of those little tubs of Glenfiddich minis containing the 12, 15 and 18. I found that I also had a couple of the old NAS minis in the old style pointy triangular bottles, not with the new rounded corners. (Makes a difference to the taste, don't you know) Anyway, I thought I could have a little tasting session with four minis.

Glenfiddich NAS Special Old Reserve
This is a malt which I recall being a bit boring (malt snob talking here?) but it was good to be able to reacquaint myself with one of the classics. It's one of the first three malts I tried.
Anyway, my verdict here was that it was light, simple, pleasant, a touch spirity and nothing special.

Glenfiddich 12 year old Special Reserve
Much more winey and fruity than the NAS and less spirity. A huge improvement. Not one I'll buy by the bottle but I would now be happy to have an occasional dram of it in a pub.

Glenfiddich 15 year old Solera Reserve
The weakest link in the three standard offerings. Basically no improvement on the 12 year old, in fact I thought the 12 had more to offer.

18 year old Ancient Reserve
Fruit and honey. A lovely smooth malt which would be even better at 43% or 46%. A touch thinner than I'd like but not one I'd turn down!

On the next night I went back and finished off the four minis and decided that I felt the same way about them. Some people rave about the Solera Reserve but it just didn't do anything for me

Ok, I'm retasting the Batch 16 tonight and will likely go to Batch 18 a little later. Tonight I am getting hints of charcoal underneath the fruits and caramel. This is on the palate and not part of the nose. I wonder if this is what people are calling "sulphur".

Last edited by Ganga on Wed May 23, 2007 5:30 am, edited 1 time in total.

Well, I took Batch 16 and 18 way down in percentage high teens, low twenties. The charcoal remains in the Batch 16, reminds me of campfires - we burn oak out in CA. Batch 18 has hints of "meaty" fruits like peaches and apricots. There is no real hint of the charcoal I found in Batch 16.

Mustardhead wrote:A couple of months ago I bought two of those little tubs of Glenfiddich minis containing the 12, 15 and 18.

I had one of these a few months ago too. I agree with you that the 18 is wonderful, however I definitely preferred the 15 over the 12. My notes say the nose & palate were both more balanced had more vanilla and were less malty, and the finish was much nicer. Not saying I'm a huge fan of the 15, but compared to the 12 I like it.

I also just picked up a pack of 3 100ml Taliskers. It includes a 10, an 18, and a Distillers Edition (doesn't seem to specify a vintage for this one). Can't want to dive into these. I've tried the 10 and loved it, but have not tried either of the others.

When MikeyMad and I next get together, we will be trying a flight of the Taliskers. The current list for the flight includes the 10, DE-DM, 175th, 18, 25 and 30. Should be an interesting evening coming up.

Ganga wrote:Well, I took Batch 16 and 18 way down in percentage high teens, low twenties. The charcoal remains in the Batch 16, reminds me of campfires - we burn oak out in CA. Batch 18 has hints of "meaty" fruits like peaches and apricots. There is no real hint of the charcoal I found in Batch 16.

Actually, batch #17 is the most sulphured I've tasted so far. It's not hidden at all in that expression. Actually being a A'bunadh-lover (tasted about 10 different expressions so far) that's the reason why I rate that one as the poorest of the bunch. #18 didn't show the sulphur to me, but I found it not as good as most of the previous batches, but I was happy to not find any sulphur since I was afraid it would be the tendency.

If it tastes like a campfire I would suggest phenolic notes. But for A'bunadh??? So, probably it's something like exhausted fires or spent fireworks and that would qualify under sulphur....

Talking about tasting flights. I'm planning to do an A'bunadh tasting next year if I can find all expressions (for reasonable prices). So if anyone here on the forum could help me:

I'm still looking for batch:
#7
#9
#10
and the millenium silver label.
And I don't know yet how I can find out which is which in the first 5 batches that weren't numbered.

Perhaps it's just me but, and I've mentioned this before (heck, today actually), I just can't taste a lot of Islay whisky in a row without it having a very strong influence on my scoring abilities. The further I get, the lesser they get special. If I have a Laph16y I almost find it impossible to have another Islay because it'd most certainly rate lower then it should, the peat and smoke is already on the pallate.

Is there any way to 'fight' against it, or is it perfectly natural and even preferably the way to taste the Islay whiskies against each other as their own natural enemies? Right now I usually drink two non-Islay before sipping the next Islay, hoping to let them come more to their own right. I find that it's the peat and smoke explosion that makes them so enjoyable, and I don't want to spoil that experience just yet.

Had an evening of 4 Islay whiskies a while back. I did notice the differences between them but the evenings when I use Islay as highlighters between the rest always felt a lot better. Perhaps I should serve something to eat between them next time...

Now on to the iced version.
Nose: oranges, cereals, fennel.
Palate: raw cereals, concentrated fatty/oiliness, bitterness.
Finish: Oily with greens (eucalyptus).
Not very pleasant. However, it was really cool visually watching the eddies swirl because of the temp differences between the whisky and the melting ice. I think Vincent van Gogh painted this whisky. I will also say that it becomes more like the whisky with water as it begins to warm.

It was surprisingly pleasant on the nose at 2:1 whisky:water. I don't mind drinking this beverage this way. However, the palate is much more intense and, for me, more enjoyable without the addition of water. The ice was not that pleasant as far as palate and nose were concerned.

Re: Whisky Flights

Last night PeerGynt, MikeyMad and I went through a series of Laphroaigs. The first was a Signatory UCF 1990 12 yo. Second was the Laphroaig Quarter Cask. Third was the Laphroaig Cask Strength. Fourth was a Caledonian Selection 20 yo. Last was the 30 yo.

We weren't careful about taking notes so this is just an overall impression. The first had the notes typical to a Laphroaig with each having a slightly different sweetness on the palate. I wouldn't rate one higher than the other; they're just a little different on the palate and nose. The Caledonian Selection 20 yo however...well it just had a little bit richer palate and a light nose that just played with you. All in all this one was just a little bit better. The 30 yo was that and some more. Mellow with all the flavors of the younger ones plus some. A wonderful experience for the three of us.

Re: Whisky Flights

Tonight, I am going to do a flight of Glenlivet whiskies. I have in front of me two 12 yos and two 18 yos from different eras. A brief description of each follows and then some tasting notes.

#1 Glenlivet 12 yo, cream label, gold foil, "aged 12 years" in red, single label on front, bottle embossed with "Estd 1824", several other notable differences on the label, 40%, think this is from the late 90s, green glass